


Soldier

by scarecrow_horses



Series: The Original LJ Spike & Xander [15]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Dialogue-Only, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24724486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrow_horses/pseuds/scarecrow_horses
Summary: A meditation on soldiers and monsters....
Series: The Original LJ Spike & Xander [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072598
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> This is kinda weird and OOC for me, and I truly have no clue when or why I wrote it. Post-Spike gets his soul, so season seven sometime, probably down in the Summers' basement.

"It's kind of like being a soldier - like being _those_ soldiers."

" _What_ soldiers?"

"The ones that went to Vietnam. You know?"

"I know about the _war_ , but how is that _anything_ like me being a vampire?"

"Okay, okay, just let me... let me say it all. I'll get confused if you interrupt."

"Pet, you're _already_ -"

"No, just let me _talk_ , okay? It's like - they went over there, all young and naive, and ready for anything. A grand adventure. They were gonna be heroes, they were gonna be these amazing warriors, and all the people were gonna love them, and the girls were gonna kiss them, and the old men shake their hands.... You know, it was gonna be this big, wonderful, Fourth of July parade, only with guns that shot real bullets.

"And then they got over there, and some of it _was_ grand. I mean, it was a beautiful place, and they were the kings of it; they were gods, and they walked where they liked, and they didn't take any crap from anybody. They were a brotherhood; they made friends their that were closer then any family. They made a _family_ around them that could stand up to death, and horror, and fear.

"They were invincible...except when they weren't, and that just made them all closer, all meaner, all...more godlike. And after a while, it didn't even bother some of them if they had blood under their nails, or that they'd made someone scream for mercy and killed them anyway, or that they'd burned a houseful of women and children alive, or that they'd raped some little girl, because deep down in the back of their mind, they'd always kind of wondered what it would _feel_ like to do that. To be that unstoppable thing, that could deal out blood, and death, and still go have a laugh, and a beer, and a smoke…

"For some of them, it was like that."

"And then they came home, and it was kind of like you getting your soul, you know? All of a sudden they weren't gods, they weren't heroes. They were Bob's son, Mary's brother, the young man who was supposed to go to work, and go to church, and love his girlfriend, and get drunk. But not ever hit anybody, or curse at his mom, or kick in a door or a face....

"All of a sudden, they realized that the hands that were supposed to cut grass, and sign checks, and make love to their wives had cut _throats_ , and burned down houses, and shot bullets into brains.... They looked back and realized, they hadn't been gods, or heroes; they'd been monsters.

'They'd been everything they'd ever feared and fought against. And the worst part was, they couldn't _do_ anything about it. They couldn't fix it, they couldn't change it. They couldn't go back and apologize, or make things better. And they couldn't ever, ever _talk_ about it. 

"I mean, they could get together with their buddies from that time, and laugh, and exchange stories, and make it sound like it didn't matter, like it hadn't been that bad.... Or they could relate some little incident to make someone think they were tough, or scary, or just plain crazy. Or make their wife cry a little, or their Dad pat them on the shoulder a little.

"But they couldn't ever really _tell_ anyone, even themselves, that while they had been there they had _loved_ it - loved every minute of it. Loved the heat and the craziness, and the pain and the misery, and the blood and the screams. 

"Loved it.

"But now, it was like... they woke up, and realized what a dark place they'd been to, and that not only could they never, ever _fix_ it, but they could never, ever forget it, either. They could never be free of that part of themselves - never clean off the taint of the monster."

A long silence, and a small, shaky breath.

"What did these soldiers do, then, when they got back and found all this out?"

"Well... some of them went crazy. Just couldn't live with what happened and just... sank. Went under and never came back. Left everything; family, and friends, and _lives_ and just - disappeared. Died, eventually. Drugs, or violence, or suicide. Some of them...will be in therapy, and talking to doctors for the rest of their lives. They'll all have dreams - nightmares - until they die. All of them. There'll always be something that reminds them; some smell, some color, some sound, that just comes up and blindsides them for one second, and then it all comes back."

"That's ... encouraging."

"Yeah. I mean, _no_ , it's - it's not meant to be encouraging, it just _is_. But some of them - some of them are okay. Some of them realized what they did,l and know it for what it was; a time of madness. A time out of time, out of place. When nobody was what they were before, and would never be again. But also a time that wouldn't ever _be_ , again.

"They looked at what they'd done, even if it wasn't too bad, or if it was completely horrific, and they decided what they had to do, to fix things. They weren't... excused. There wasn't any reason for it, except it happened. They couldn't _change_ anything; the dead were dead, no going back. But they could remember, and they could try to be - _better_. 

"Not - goody goody, carrying a Bible and wearing a hair shirt, but _better_ \- doing the small things that start the ripples going out to bigger things. Making sure nobody _else_ suffered, either at their hands or because of them, or because of somebody else. Making life precious again, instead of a game. Making things...I dunno; fixing what they could, and _trying_ to fix the rest, and not letting the big stuff tear them down. Not ever letting the monster loose again on the innocent and the undeserved."

"Not... _killing_...the monster?"

"No. You can't kill the monster. You can't ever put it back, once it's gotten out of its box. But you can make it behave, and you can maybe use it when it would be _good_ to use it. There are lots of monsters, and sometimes you need a monster to kill another one, you know? But you just have to be very careful about when and if it ever gets to come out, and make sure that...it's not an excuse, you know? Not a...cop out."

"A cop out."

"Yeah. It's hard, to keep the monster in when it's been let out to do whatever it wants. But it's _harder_ to let it out just a little, so that the important people are safe."

"Like Dawn."

"Yeah. There might be monsters in her life only another monster can kill. And it's good that she _has_ a monster on her side. You just have to remember that...the monster isn't everything. It's not all there is to...you. Not all you are."

"Isn't it?"

"No. It really, really isn't."


End file.
